Praying and Running

This has quickly become one of my favorite races of the year and I am not alone because there was a record 575 participants across the different events this year. I like the small town atmosphere, I like the course that is an out and back on a country road, and the timing makes it a perfect tune up race for the fall season. After my performance here the last two years I am also really beginning to appreciate it for the confidence booster it is and it's ability to add a breath of fresh air to the end of the training cycle for the 2013 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. For this race I added an early morning shake out run to get my body primed for running. This was just a short and easy 20 minute run very first thing out of bed. Nearly all of my running is first thing in the morning but  I've never done it as a shakeout for a race. I liked it and think I'll keep it. The last 5k I ran I didn't do a warm up and I learned my lesson because it cost me a very slow fi...

It wasn't exactly a race for me but more like a training run. I used this marathon as one of two extended long runs that I planned for this training cycle preparing for the goal race, the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon on November 2nd, 2013. When this cycle started I had planned the same 2 extra long runs that I did last time. A 25 mile run and a 30 mile run. Then in early August the Carmel Marathon had a facebook contest to win 1 of 2 entries to this race. I won one of them and decided to swap out the 30 mile run thinking it would be way better to run 26.2 with full support, other runners and spectators. It was a Sunday marathon 3.5 hrs away so we got to town the day before and spent the night. The first order of business was packet pickup. My first complaint about the race is that the expo was in way too small of a space. Then when I got to the table to get my packet they handed me a medium shirt. I don't wear a medium, I wear a small. They couldn't do anything abou...

Good and Evil are real and objective. I don't think this can be said enough because as fallen and broken humans we are constantly trying to justiy our faults. Instead of admitting our failures to lead the holy life we were created for we present our evil as good. Our conscince, our moral compass, is broken. So instead of following the straight and narrow path we wonder around every which way depending on how we "feel." The Good News is that our God saw us in our wonderings and came down to lead us. He said that the gate was narrow and the path hard to find Mathew 7:14. He also said, "I AM the way, the Truth and the Life" John 14:6. He never said, Whatever road you chose willl lead to the same place. In fact going back to Matthew 7 He said that the road to damnation was wide and easy to chose. Stilll here we are. Always picking back up that broken compass and relying on it to lead us to Him. But he already came and indeed stays with us until the end. He is r...

Is it just me or does this not sound like a way to have a really fun week? This Sunday 9/22/2013 I will be running a "Marathon as a Training Run." I am currently in training for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon which I will race on 11/2/2013. During my last training cycle I incorporated a few training runs over the standard 20 - 24 mile "longest run in a training program" runs. Most programs cap the long run here because it is thought firstly that a run longer provides very little more in the way of preparation and increases the chance of injury past an acceptable point and secondly because the runner could loose valuable days to the additional recovery needed from such an effort. My last time around though I found that I could do some longer runs pushing my body to be better adapted to the specific distance of the marathon and I could do them in a way that minimized injury risk and recovery time. I blogged about it back then here . My plan was to do the sam...

Last night my daughter's confirmation sponsor invited her to Mass this morning and then breakfast after. When my daughter told me this I realized that I was on vacation, not doing a darn thing and the idea of attending a weekday Mass hadn't even dawned on me.With that I decided that I would go to Mass this morning too. When I woke up this morning the reality of the "Real Presence" was on my mind. This is a Catholic doctirine that states that the Eucharist becomes truly and fully, not symbolically or partially, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. As I was sitting and waiting to leave for Mass I was moved to compose this facebook check-in for when I arrived at the Church. I had hoped at the time that this would make a difference to someone else. That maybe it would inspire some soul to become more fervent about what happens at Mass. What I think it really did was to cement the importance for me in what I have come to take for granted. It actually served to ins...

 Sometimes it is good to sit back and evaluate your life, where you are and where you want to be and when you get there will it really be all that you thought it would be?. We seem to spend an awful lot of time chasing happiness. What makes you happy? What is it that will finally satisfy you? Do you know? I can remember just out of high school thinking if I could just find a job where I made $300.00 a week I wouldn't ever need any more than that. I got that job and I remember thinking if I could just get that full time job that paid $12.00 an hour and offered health insurance I would be set. I got that job and began searching for a way to just make $40,000 a year. The pattern continues through out my life. I reach what I thought was the goal and a new goal appears. I could recite a similar pattern with things. If I only had this car or that phone or this television life would be grand! It feels like it is never-ending because it is never-ending. Money and things never bring conte...

17 weeks. 1142 Mile. 146 hours of running. 95,135 calories. One 30 mile run and 9 runs of 20 miles or more. Average pace 7:41. 25 hours of strength training. This sums up the work I put in for the 26.2 miles I ran at the 2013 Carmel Marathon on April 20th. Friday on my lunch hour I drove to the Monon Center in Carmel IN for packet pickup. Not much to say about this except that trying to squeeze it into a long lunch resulted in undue stress. Also this didn't allow me  time to stick around and explore. But in the end I guess that's OK. Friday evening we headed out for some serious carb loading. With the taper and my efforts to load up on carbs over a 3 day period, I wasn't really hungry but I ate that pasta like a trooper anyway knowing that I would need it in about 12 hours. Sleep Friday night was spare. A sick dog and a wife finishing up her last semester for a Bachelors degree kept the house hopping until about 11:30. No problem, if you follow my training on dailymile  y...